French Hostage in Algeria Is Beheaded in Video Released by Militants

In a sign of the growing influence of the extremist group known as the Islamic State, fighters aligned with the organization beheaded a French tourist in Algeria and released a video on Wednesday documenting the brutal killing, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

The Frenchman — Hervé Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from Nice — was kidnapped over the weekend, soon after the Islamic State called on its supporters around the world to harm Europeans in retaliation for the recent airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

The Algerian fighters swiftly responded to the Islamic State’s call by posting a video of Mr. Gourdel in captivity, appearing disoriented and still carrying his camera slung around his neck.

In addition, a militant group in the Philippines announced that it was holding European captives: Two Germans whom it threatened to kill unless Germany paid ransom or stopped supporting the American-led campaign against the Islamic State.

Policy makers have debated for months whether the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is able to strike directly at the West. Its capacity for large-scale terrorist attacks beyond its home in the Middle East remains in dispute. But the beheading of Mr. Gourdel and the threat to kill the two Germans demonstrate that smaller groups around the world aligned with the Islamic State are capable of kidnapping Westerners and using them for grisly propaganda purposes in sympathy with the organization.

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Hervé Gourdel is seen with his captors moments before his execution in an image taken from a video and distributed by SITE Intelligence, which monitors jihadist websites.

Small jihadist groups elsewhere in North Africa — like Libya and Tunisia — as well as in the Caucasus and in Southeast Asia have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and many of them operate in areas where Westerners frequently travel, including tourists, journalists and aid workers.

The public oaths of allegiance indicate that the smaller groups have placed themselves under the command of the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Analysts have questioned how close these relationships are, but the sequence of events over the weekend suggested that at least the Algerian cell was directly following the larger group’s orders.

Mr. Gourdel was kidnapped on Sunday in the mountainous Tizi Ouzou region of Algeria, a day after he arrived there to go hiking. The group that seized him — known as Jund al-Khilafah, or Soldiers of the Caliphate — released the first video of him in captivity on Monday, declaring that France had 24 hours to renounce its participation in the assault against the Islamic State or face seeing Mr. Gourdel killed.

The second video, documenting the beheading, began circulating on Wednesday, according to a link provided by SITE Intelligence, which tracks jihadist groups.

France has a history of paying ransom through intermediaries to obtain the release of its kidnapped citizens, including four French journalists held by the Islamic State in Syria this year. However, the French government said this week that it would not give in to the Algerian cell’s ultimatum. The prime minister, Manuel Valls, told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday: “If we cede, if we retreat one inch, that would hand victory” to the militants.

Over the past decade, groups directly affiliated with Al Qaeda have collected millions of dollars in ransom from European governments and their proxies. According to the Treasury Department, about $40 million was paid last year to free four French citizens who were being held by Al Qaeda’s North African branch. An investigation by The New York Times found that Al Qaeda’s affiliates have generally moved away from killing their hostages for propaganda purposes, and prefer to use them as a source of revenue.

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A recent photo of Mr. Gourdel in France. He was visiting Algeria for a hiking trip in the northern mountains.Creditvia Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The exception to this trend was the Qaeda branch in Iraq, whose leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, appeared to relish filming himself beheading his Western victims. His methods were deemed so brutal that the Qaeda leadership reprimanded him in a letter that was later made public, saying that he should kill his captives by shooting them, to avoid the horrifying and potentially damaging imagery of a decapitation.

Mr. Zarqawi’s group has since broken with Al Qaeda, and the Islamic State is its newest incarnation.

In the video circulated on Wednesday, Mr. Gourdel is shown kneeling before his four armed captors with his hands bound behind his back. His bony shoulders poke forward, and for the most part he stares at the ground as his kidnappers read a script announcing that he will be killed.

“We say to the generous emir and brave hero, Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: We are at your service,” the fighters say in the video, referring to the leader of the Islamic State. “Let the French people know that their blood is cheap for their president, and it is the same as you made the blood of Muslim women and children cheap in Iraq and Syria.”

They are then seen wrestling Mr. Gourdel to the ground, where he tries to curl up in a fetal position to protect himself. The fighters pull his head back and place the blade of a knife at his throat.

The video then cuts to a scene of the fighters holding up Mr. Gourdel’s severed head.

Maïa de la Baume contributed reporting from Paris.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: French Hostage in Algeria Is Beheaded in Video Released by Militants. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe